Note - As I have been saying for many years, prions do
not now nor have they ever restricted themselves to 'brain and spinal column'
tissues in either cows or deer or any other species infected (including
humans). This story below confirming prions in the muscle tissue (meat)
of deer comes as absolutely no surprise to the informed, and if it does
not put an end to most deer hunting/eating, nothing probably will. (Prions
in infected cattle were found in the 'muscle tissue' of cows years ago.)
Unfortunately, many hunters and their families will go on to pay a terrible
and tragic price for their 'sport' which is now officially tainted by this
'official' news. This article, of course, toes the obligatory and asinine
government lie that 'no one knows if CWD can jump to humans' - which is
beyond stupid and intended purely to protect the hunting and firearms industries
and state and local tourism. Prions are spread through ALL bodily fluids
in the deer/elk/cattle populations. The most 'rigid' warning to US deer
hunters to date suggested that it 'might not be a good idea' to shoot and
eat deer which are seen to be stumbling around or acting 'sick.' Of course,
this warning is utterly laughable in the light of reality which is that
the disease has a lengthy asymptomatic period which might last for years...during
which the animal is infected and infectious. Furthermore, this article
incorrectly states that mad deer have been found in '13 states' to date.
In reality, CWD/mad deer have now been found in close to 40 different
states. Bon appetite. -- JR

Prion Disease Found Lurking In Deer Muscle

By Debora MacKenzie

NewScientist.com news service

1-28-6

The infectious prions that cause Chronic Wasting Disease,
an infection similar to BSE that afflicts North American deer and elk have
been found in the parts of the animals that people eat. No one knows if
CWD can jump to humans, but if it does hunters in affected areas might
be at risk.

CWD was first diagnosed as a spongiform encephalopathy
in captive deer and elk in Colorado in the 1970s, and in wild deer and
elk in the region in the 1980s. But in the 1990s it spread widely within
the elk farming industry, jumped to wild deer, and now affects two provinces
of Canada and 13 US states.

Like the related sheep disease scrapie ­ though unlike
BSE ­ CWD spreads from animal to animal, says Glenn Telling of the
University of Kentucky at Lexington, US. Deer housed with infected animals,
or fed infected brain experimentally, contract the disease.

Because of this there are fears that the CWD prion might
be distributed widely in the deer's tissues ­ as scrapie is in sheep.
Efforts to find the infectious prion in the muscle of infected animals,
by seeing whether antibodies to the prion could find any and bind on, have
previously failed.

But Telling's lab has now shown that diseased prions
can reside in muscle of deer infected with CWD, by using transgenic mice.

Transgenic mice

The team replaced the gene for the normal mouse version
of the prion protein with the normal gene from deer, so the mice made the
normal, healthy deer protein. They then injected the mouse brains with
tissue from infected deer. Twelve to 18 months later, the mice developed
encephalopathy.

Tissues from both the infected deers' brains and thigh
muscle caused disease. Muscle took slightly longer to cause disease than
brain tissue, showing it had slightly less prion.

"We don't know that it is transmitted in the wild
by animals eating muscle from infected animals," cautions Telling.
"We now have to see where else the prion might be," including
saliva and even excrement, using more transgenic mice.

Brain warnings

"Because we tested deer that were already ill,"
he told New Scientist, "we don't know what the distribution of prion
is in animals that are still incubating the disease." Hunters have
been warned by wildlife agencies not to kill and eat obviously ill animals,
but an animal not yet showing signs of the disease might still carry the
abnormal prion, albeit less of it.

It is also unknown whether people can catch encephalopathy
by eating CWD-infected meat, as they can from eating BSE-tainted meat.
Anecdotal reports that hunters develop the human prion disease CJD in unusual
numbers have never been confirmed. State officials have issued warnings
to hunters not to eat brain or spinal cord ­ the tissues most affected.

"If I were a hunter I would be cautious about eating
deer in areas affected," says Telling. But he notes that not much
testing of wildlife has been done, and it is not clear how prevalent the
infection is.